


if the heart has devoted itself to love

by feralphoenix



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Don't copy to another site, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Grief/Mourning, Other, Size Difference, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Tentacles, Trans Male Character, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:54:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26913958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: Ghost and Quirrel, at the Blue Lake.
Relationships: The Knight/Quirrel (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 147





	if the heart has devoted itself to love

**Author's Note:**

> _(I should have kissed you by the water_ – I want to tell you that you’re here!)
> 
> ghost is an adult. they're so much smaller than other vessels because they spent way less time in proximity with the void & pale beings than their siblings did (as i think absorbing ambient energy from both is how vessels physically grow).
> 
> wrt the "body horror" tag, this fic borrows [hivemindomega](https://hivemindomega.tumblr.com/post/183275542599/)'s ritual maiming headcanons mentioned in the tags of the linked post; it's implied that quirrel went through something like this in the past but not discussed in gory detail or anything. this tag also refers to vessels' noneuclidean anatomy.
> 
> the "body dysphoria" tag refers to ghost's feelings about their small stature compared to their age plus their lack of genitals. there's some elaboration on the latter in this story, so like, tread carefully if that's something that might bother you.
> 
> further warnings related to the "suicidal thoughts" tag are located off-site [here](https://ankhors.dreamwidth.org/27058.html) in order to avoid spoiling the outcome of the story. i strongly recommend only checking the detailed warnings if you have severe suicide-related triggers and NEED the spoiler warnings to protect yourself.

Quirrel hasn’t said a word to you for almost a whole hour.

You sneak a look at him without rising to your feet. (Lucky the ground’s soft here on the lake’s bank or your legs might have gotten stiff by now!) He looks— _so_ different without Monomon the Teacher’s mask fastened snug upon his head for a hat. Smaller, or maybe that’s just his posture: Quirrel does tend to slouch when he’s not sitting against some sort of wall or back rest, but until now that’s always looked… nonchalant. He slumps now, arms rested limp on his knees. Back in the Archives he’d said he was _feeling his age_ as if it were a joke, but right now he _looks_ old and weary, though his is still the bright and well-cared for carapace of a bug in the prime of life.

He must sense you staring—he always seems to!—but he doesn’t turn to face you at all.

When you first saw him sitting here… approaching him had been tough, after what you’ve done. At least Lurien’s… butler or servant, whatever they were, had been infected and not lucid. And Hornet didn’t show up at her mother’s room until you’d… But Quirrel, he was there the _whole time._ And even though he hasn’t said a word about what she was to him, it’s obvious Monomon was some sort of important.

He told you to _be brave_ when you’d hesitated to raise the Dream Nail. He assured you that Monomon wanted this—and, sure, she’d been arguing with the other two Dreamers that the seals should be broken that one time, and when you read her thoughts she’d been thinking the same, but…

Even when you feel compassion for your enemy, you can raise your nail to defend yourself and fight. But the Dreamers… they weren’t your enemies. Their only attempt to harm you was totally ineffectual. Not a single one of them fought back. They just floated in their dreams like they were comatose, totally unresponsive as you beat them to death. You’re pretty sure there’s a word for that called _murder._

Everybody wants you to do something about the plague. The White Lady wants you to replace the Hollow Knight, Hornet seems to think there’s a different solution… but the only way to do _any_ sort of “something” hinged on killing three people your father handpicked as _sacrifices_ and threw away. Each of them may have had something to protect, but none of them were in a position to refuse—your father was Monomon and Lurien’s _king,_ they weren’t permitted to disobey. And Herrah… everything you’ve learned about the situation Deepnest was in and the terms of her sacrifice super makes you want to rip your own shell off and tear chunks of flesh out of your body. What your father did to these bugs was _sick,_ and _gross._

And the great cosmic punchline to the great tragicomedy of Hallownest is that now you’re complicit!!!!!!!! Fucking cool!!!!!!!! _Murder these innocent bugs to stop the plague,_ says everyone, and that’s exactly what you do, as if not knowing any other way makes that in any way okay!!!!!!!!

You’re never in your whole life, not until you die for real, going to be able to forget what it felt like for defenseless shell and flesh to break beneath your nail, or the pain in Hornet’s voice when she told you to leave her in her mother’s room, or the sad little shambling husk stumbling around Lurien’s atelier not even realizing he was gone.

You feel—you feel. You feel gross and your heart is breaking and if you let yourself think about any of this for more than a minute you start spiraling! Like you are right now!! Good going!!!

Anyway. Quirrel was right there and watched the whole time as you killed the Teacher, understanding exactly what was happening the whole way. And she meant something to him, something important, and… if _you_ hate yourself for murdering her not even knowing her, there’s no way you could blame him for hating you.

You desperately don’t want Quirrel to hate you.

But there was something— _something_ about the way he looked from behind, so much more vulnerable with his head only wrapped in the blue-gray kerchief instead of bearing Monomon’s mask. It’s a lot scarier than the worry that he’d decide to blame you after all, so you approached him.

And even though he seems so tired, he still had kind words for you. He still _flirted_ with you, same as always. Even peeking at his thoughts with the Dream Nail, you can’t find any sort of hint that he’s anything but completely genuine, same as he’s always been. Quirrel is so _good_ and it makes you want to cry.

But he hasn’t said anything in so long, and now he won’t look at you.

Admittedly your memory is rotted full of holes (thanks, horrible bastard dad!!!), but you cannot ever remember being more terrified than you are right now.

It’s like—if you look away from Quirrel for even a minute, and then look back, it wouldn’t surprise you to see him fading away into Essence like the Grey Mourner or (thinking about this still tears you in two) the Seer. He feels like… like he’s going somewhere, and it’s somewhere you’re not going to get to follow. It’s a little like how you felt when you were listening to Cloth’s ghost, except Cloth was so happy she’d be able to meet whoever Nola is again that that was more… _bittersweet,_ or something. It took time to wrap your head around but at least you got to say goodbye.

Quirrel’s not _happy_ at all. Not satisfied. He’s in shock. And the longer you sit here with him the stronger that bad feeling gets, like if you take your eyes off him just once you’re going to lose him somehow.

Sure it doesn’t make logical sense, but you’ve watched so many fucking people die since you came back to Hallownest, not even counting the ones who’ve turned up dead or infected even though you just saw them perfectly healthy not too long ago. You’d do just about anything to stop that from happening again now, with Quirrel.

You get the super distinct feeling this might be easier if you could just _communicate with him though._ Thanks horrible bastard shithead excuse for a father!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe… maybe there are other ways to tell him, though, that you care about him and you’re scared for him and you want him to stay. It’s hard to wrack your brains when the warning clanging through them is like vibrating you out of your whole-ass body but you still bend yourself to remembering every moment you’ve spent together with Quirrel, every time he’s touched or held you.

And you reach out to touch his arm.

Quirrel makes a little sound and startles just a tiny bit where he sits, looking down at your claw. You wait a moment—he needs a chance to react, to push you away if this isn’t welcome. But he doesn’t, and so you scoot in closer to him and run the claw down his arm to his wrist. He shivers beneath your touch. Carefully, so so carefully, you lift his claw from where it lists upon his knee and pull it to your chest, wind your little claws around the long spindly fingers of his.

“Ah,” Quirrel says. He’s turned to face you while you hold his hand and is now looking not into your face so much as at your claws around his. “Your… your claws are warmer than I expected, friend.”

His claw is _cold._ How long _has_ he been sitting here? You rub at his claw with both of yours and press it to your chest. Being made of Void seems to mean you’re not quite ether coldblooded or warmblooded, so you can’t exactly beam down on Quirrel with summer-day heat, but maybe you can still help at least a little.

“Are you…” Quirrel turns more where he sits so his whole torso now faces you. “My friend… my dear friend. Are you—are you trying to comfort me?”

There’s a sharp hot flash of annoyance that flares up in you at those words because _what the fuck else does he THINK you’re doing_ but you try to push it aside because he’s in a right state and you can’t come straight out and say you’re here for him and you want to help. So you squeeze his claw in both of yours and press it to your shell even harder.

Quirrel responds to this with a winded, wondering little laugh. “After everything I’ve, _we’ve,_ asked of you—all of this—love, you’re so,” and here his voice wobbles and he chuckles again, “you’re much, _much_ too kind,” and his voice strains into this—this awful fucking laughing sob that you never, ever, _ever_ wanted to hear from sweet cheerful practical Quirrel. He stretches his free claw over his face like he could cover the whole thing and he turns away so you can only see the curve of white cheek peeking out from around his kerchief, laughing and crying so it shakes his whole body.

You want to be _big_ right now so much you could explode. You’re not going to, to ask for the size of the Hollow Knight’s statue in the City of Tears or anything, though _fuck_ that would be ideal, then you could just scoop Quirrel up in your arms and curl up around him—you’d take being your lost kin’s height, they were still a little shorter than Quirrel but with arms that long you could at _least_ hug him.

Unfortunately you are all of two fucking pebbles high, so no matter how much you want to fold Quirrel up into your body and rock him all you can do is reel yourself in by his arm and step over his leg to intrude upon his lap, tucking _yourself_ to his front instead. His arm coils tight around your waist and across your back, the fingers of his claw making a sharp fist on your cloak (that pulls a bit on its stem, which, _ow,_ but that’s whatever right now).

You stroke down the plates of Quirrel’s chest with your claws, trying not to scratch or prod at his pouch since that covers a lot of the middle segments of his torso. You slide your left claw to reach for his right arm and maybe get him to pull that claw away from his face, but instead of a limb your digits catch on some sort of… scarred-up lumpy protrusion like the stump left over after something’s been amputated. You turn your head to see that you’ve reached a segment too high to actually get his arm—and that there are other little stumps down the side of his body between his arm and leg, one per segment.

This realization rockets your mind back to your travels in Deepnest, for some reason. The dirtcarvers are a kind of isopod too, still-wild omnivorous cousins to pill bugs like Quirrel and Myla and the various infected husks you’ve seen around, and _they_ all have _five_ pairs of limbs instead of only two like the Hallownest ones…

There’s something fucking horrible at the end of this train of thought and more than ever you want to pick Quirrel up and run away from here, steal him away from Hallownest’s desiccated corpse so nothing else here can harm him. Quirrel and everybody else too, actually; more and more you get the sense that actually the Light did this world a favor by wiping that rotten kingdom off the map. Too bad the splash damage was so severe it’s negated a lot of the good she’d done—though, like, again, you’re pretty sure your _fucking bastard dad_ should actually take the heat for some of that because he super definitely made everything three bajillion times worse.

Fuck.

To take your mind off of the Real Bad Possibilities that have occurred to you, you reach up to touch Quirrel’s face instead. He’s one of those bugs for whom it’s tough to tell whether they’re wearing a mask or not, and even now with his tearstained cheek under your claws you’re not a hundred percent sure whether it’s his shell your palm casts over or not. It doesn’t really matter right now, you decide, and you wipe at the tear tracks for a moment. Barely have you got that spot dry, though, when a fresh tear runs over your claw and drips down your wrist to trickle the length of your arm.

You lift your other claw so you can cup Quirrel’s face between them, and finally he lets his claw drop from his eyes to hold you in both arms. That’s encouraging. You gently guide his face down so you can bump your forehead to his through your mask. Quirrel’s breath hitches, maybe from the touch or maybe because he’s still crying a little, there’s no way for you to know. You run your claws all over his face, rubbing your thumbclaws in swirls, as much to comfort him as to remind yourself of how solid and real he is.

“Love,” he says in this little gelled-over voice that smolders all through you and makes you shudder. You want to touch every part of him, or at least every part he’ll let you touch; you want his long clever claws all over you so much your flanks and belly _ache._ Maybe this is the answer you need. If you can’t tell Quirrel _I care about you so much, please stay with me_ in words—at least you can try to come as close as you can with your body, right? If he’ll have you?

With the palm of your right claw near his chin you finally find his mouth—or his mouth finds you, gentle little herbivore’s mandibles working against the meat of the palm in a nibble or maybe a kiss. Something wet—is that _tongue?—_ presses so, so briefly between the base of your first and middle finger. Your breath trembles and so do you, _fuck,_ it’s like walking face-first into a cloud of charged lumaflies except your senses light up pleasure instead of pain. Some of this has to just be your nervous desperation carrying over into arousal, but holy _abyss,_ you nearly came.

“Is this all right?” Quirrel asks, weak and unsure, voice muffled behind your claw. You nod your head up and down as vehemently as you can, make yourself a little dizzy doing it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, _yes_ this is all right.

It’s hard to maneuver exactly because you do Not want to take that claw away if he’s going to keep kissing you like that, but you can’t just wait for it to occur to him you want more. Eventually you manage to get his right wrist in your left claw, and you bring his claw to your chest, push it flat against your front so the three fingers and the thumb are fully extended.

“Your heart…,” Quirrel says into your claw. It’s lethally ticklish—your middle and your sides throb again and you think if you die from this your Shade will either melt into a puddle or carry on ravishing Quirrel like something Bretta would write. You have about one second to be jealous of your Shade in the fantasy and another to imagine fucking Quirrel with _two_ of yourself and then he drags his claws side to side over your shell. You need his fingers curled around you, tight at the roots, squeezing, tugging, but you’re not even unfurled a little bit yet. Your knees are trembling. “It’s beating so fast.”

He’ll leave that claw there now, so you reach out and touch his chest with just your claw tips, stroke very gently down his plating and gentler over his soft marsupium, sink down to touch his belly beneath it—your right claw slips down to his chest, you’re just not cursed tall enough to be able to touch his mouth and paw at his nethers at the same time. But his legs shiver to either side of you and he moans faint and low, so this’ll have to be good enough for now you guess.

“You really want—it’s all right if I…?” he asks _so_ hesitantly, and you make yourself dizzy again nodding to encourage him. With your claw on his chest you can feel him swallow. You are going to go insane. Quirrel peers into your face with real worry, though, and he clears his throat just a little. “Pardon my imprudence, but, love—have you, before? I won’t be—your first?”

He sounds absolutely terrified. You shake your head no, try to inject some humor into the movement by keeping it stilted and taking your claws from his torso to squeeze his bracingly.

Quirrel breathes out, laughs; the fingers of his left claw slide from your cloak to your back underneath it, and they knead there. “Thank goodness. I’m not a virgin either, but I’ve—not been with a bug of your like before, so it’s comforting to know you’ll be able to give me some guidance.”

He’s going to have to show you what he likes, too; you have very little idea of how his species has sex. But Quirrel’s at least got a voice, and you trust him to stop you if you risk making a muck of things. You squeeze his claw again, trying to reassure him that you’re on equal footing.

In answer he pulls you back in towards him, neatly nestled between his skinny thighs. His claws travel softly over your body, digits skating apart as if mapping you: They raise to your throat and he plays his thumbs at the base of your mask for a few moments. Then he pauses and cups the back of your head.

“This can’t be removed, can it,” he says, a strange note in his voice. You shake your head no. Likely you’d only have an insubstantial Shade face underneath it anyway, just as featureless as the mask itself. Kissing mouth to mouth is always made out to be such a romantic thing, and you _are_ curious about what it would be like, but your lack of a mouth has never bothered you anywhere near how much your lack of genitals does.

Quirrel’s claws explore your shoulders, your back, then slip underneath your cloak. His touch is more cautious now, so delicate that his foreclaws catching on your cloak’s stem don’t hurt even a little bit. “This is _attached._ This is—friend. Your cloak is a part of you?”

He can probably tell that from the way his clawtips probe at it timidly, so you’re going to guess that’s a rhetorical question. “This feels like cloth woven from plant fibers. And yet it sprouts from you like wing covers, or some sort of leaf…” Here his voice trails off, and he sets his palms flat on your back now, sliding them down to the small of your back as he looks down at you with an unreadable expression. Then he pulls you in close and hugs you tight, curling his body around you as though _you’re_ the one who needs tenderness right now instead of him.

There’s one close in reach, so you pat very gently at one of his amputated stumps to remind him of this. Quirrel laughs a little, a sad and harsh sound, and says, “Yes, I suppose you’re quite right about that, love. All of us who traverse the dead paths of Hallownest have our own damage, don’t we?”

You all do. You wish so much that you could be—smarter, stronger, _anything,_ and turn back time to save _everyone_ still left alive in this awful place when you’d arrived here, from the Hollow Knight to the Light herself, and every sleepwalking husk in between. Your father was the one who broke this world, and cleaning up his mess shouldn’t be your responsibility—you resent everyone who’s trying to force that job onto you. But there’s still _so_ much love in you for all these bugs and other creatures who just got caught up in his bullshit or the backlash for it.

Maybe—maybe you need the distraction of sex just as much as Quirrel does, right now. Your mind’s way too fucking magnetized to all the innocent blood on your claws, and the only way you can think to break that is to go in the other direction, to feel Quirrel solid and alive against your body, to touch him gently and accept his tenderness. To make each other come until neither of you can think.

He’s still just cradling you, so apparently it’s up to you to get him back on track again. Carefully you set your palms on his chest and pet downwards over his plates, mimicking the way he’s stroked you by spreading and closing his fingers—maybe this way it’ll be easier for your claws to find sensitive spots. You make it down past his pouch and are pressing a little with your foreclaws and thumbs—damn, you’re not actually sure where pill bugs’ junk even _is,_ you haven’t touched anything that feels like an opening so far—when the tip of the smallest digit on your left claw hits something wet. Quirrel gasps once, sharp, and your pulse quickens and you press just a little with the same clawtip, but then his claws disappear from your back to gently catch your arms.

“Careful there, love,” he says. You look up into his face. “I need those to breathe.”

 _What???_ You tilt your head to the side, not comprehending, and Quirrel releases one of your arms to cup your face, guiding your gaze to the middle of his abdomen. Here he lets go of your other arm so he can point to a place close to each of his flanks that’s not plated, and instead looks more like skin or membrane, similar to the marsupium higher up on his belly. “These are gills, dear friend. My ancestors were more crustacean than bug, and I believe that even now some distant cousins to my kind can still breathe in the water, though I can’t. We do need to keep them good and wet ourselves if the air is particularly dry, but that’s the limit to our dependence on water.

“I believe some like it when their gills are touched, but I tend to be a bit too sensitive for that, I’m afraid,” he goes on apologetically. _Oh._ You pull your claws back to your chest to show him you won’t do it again. Quirrel curls his back forward and the little knot of his kerchief brushes your face a moment before his mouth scrapes the top of your head. He straightens up. You wish you could touch the spot he kissed easily without having to bow your head and maybe smack him with your horns. “Don’t worry about it, love. You know now.

“Speaking of knowing…” He shifts where he sits to spread his legs a little farther apart around you, and stretches so you have a clear view of his underbelly. “I believe what you’re looking for is here.”

He reaches with his hands to point out _two_ discreet little slits, one on each flank like the gills, just lower down. _Two!_ And you were looking for just one in the middle!! Good thing he showed you, because you doubt you ever would have found them on your own!

“And… maybe here, too,” he says, directing your gaze to another opening way at the base of his abdomen. There’s just the one of it, nestled almost right where his light gray underbelly plates meet the harder curved shell of his back. He sounds a little bashful as he continues: “I do like it in the ass, quite as much as in either cunt, especially if you can spare a claw for one of them as well. Though without any pleasuring oil to ease things along that will have to depend on how wet I can get, I’m afraid. Perhaps I should’ve made the habit of carrying some with me.”

You shrug, spreading your arms wide. Not much you can do about _that_ now. Who in Dirtmouth would even sell the stuff? Maybe going through Iselda wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s Sly who runs the general store, and you’d bet good Geo he’d tease you and Quirrel if you tried to buy sex supplies from him. Or would there be some that’s still good at the Pleasure House, so the place could live up to its name? That seems like too much effort too.

Besides, _it depends on how wet I can get_ sounds like a challenge, and also like Quirrel might be up for the full scope of what you can do. Not every bug you’ve slept with (though their names all escape you and so do most of their faces—you _have_ to believe you’ll get those back someday) has been, and no matter how much you ache you’ve always respected any limits you hit.

“I think I still need a bit more foreplay before I’m ready for any of that, though,” Quirrel goes on at length, and eyes you with a silent question on his face. He’s probably looking for your nonexistent genitals now, and that knowledge makes Void roil unhappily under your shell. You wish you could just fucking explain. “Am I correct in guessing that you do, too?”

Oh, thank fuck, he’s giving you an out. Bless this man. You nod up and down.

“When I kissed your claw before, did you like that?” You nod again. _Bless_ him. “Is there anywhere… else you’d like that?” You rise to your feet and stretch out your limbs as far as they’ll go. “Does that mean… _everywhere,_ my friend?” he asks, with the edge of a chuckle. You nod again. “Well, is there anything I should know not to touch?”

Hmm. _Is_ there? You tug very very gently on your cloak and gesture at the back of your neck, since Quirrel’s already felt the stem there.

“Thank you for showing me,” he says, serious, and reaches out to settle his claws around your hips. Here he pauses. “Is it all right if I pick you up?”

You nod so hard it feels like there _ought_ to be Void sloshing around in your mask. (There’s no such sensation, you just get dizzy again.)

Quirrel scoops you up in both hands and hefts you so you’re level with his face, which he leans in towards you to press chaste little pecks into your chest. You grab at his elbows, breath huffing. His mouth lingers as he travels down your belly, and every time you feel a little wet touch of tongue your thighs bunch and you dig your claws into Quirrel’s arms. He trails all the way down to between your legs and kisses there steadily for a bit, even nibbles at your shell. Your head automatically jerks back and your breath stutters—there’s nothing _there_ for him to find but there’s still, there must still be unformed unused parts beneath your underdeveloped carapace the same way you still have a heart and lungs, because the pressure feels so _fucking_ good. Your sides are growing hot, and you can feel viscous Void starting to leak near the fingers of his claws where they hold you up by your flanks.

He notices, too, and quits kissing you ( _damn itttttt_ ) to hold you snug against his chest instead. “What’s this…?” he asks, breathless but alarmed. “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head and lean back in his embrace until you’ve almost flopped over backward, and while Quirrel shifts his grip like he can’t make up his mind whether to set you down or scoop you back upright, you manage to pat at his right slit. Your cloak is kind of in the way and you don’t get to really _look_ at it, unfortunately, but where it’s never been noticeable before it’s palpably open under your palm, baring a little warm soft flesh. (Your sides trickle more Void; some of it trails over Quirrel’s wrists to drip down your thighs and some of it rises into the air and fades the way it does when you’re actually injured or distressed.)

Curling your stomach in, you sit back up and show Quirrel your claw, digits smeared wet with his precome.

“Oh— _oh!”_ Quirrel says. “Goodness, love, I about made a right fool of myself there, didn’t I?” He chuckles a little and then smiles at you, mostly sweet and a little sad. “I imagine this must have made for some inconveniences, mustn’t it have, friend? It looks so similar to when you’re hurt, at first glance. Poor love, you must be quite tired of having to explain. Though now I’m paying attention, this is certainly wetter and stickier than that. When you bleed it seems more like you’re emitting vapor.” He leans back in to kiss your wet palm, even neatly licks his own fluids from between the fingers of your claw. You shudder all over.

“I think I’ve a good idea what to do now,” he goes on with gentle humor, and leans a little further back so he can prop you up against the base of his abdomen, huffing a little as he rests your weight there. Careful, he fits his left claw flat upon your right side and swirls his fingers in circular motions. You shudder and press into his touch.

He reaches with his right as if to set it on your other side, but you grab it and guide him to cup you between your legs instead, for the pressure. “Do you need me to do anything here?” he asks, fingers probing. You shake your head. “Just hold still?” You nod, and thankfully he stops. “All right, then. Give me those paws again, dear friend.”

You lift your claws for him, already shivering in anticipation. Quirrel resumes stroking at your side and leans in to put mandibles and tongue to work.

Ah, fuck. He’s a good multitasker. The long fingers work into your side luxuriously, and you shudder at the hope of how good his touch will feel when his claws are around you properly. Some leftover instinct grinds your hips uselessly against the claw he palms you with, its steadiness and the subtle give at the heel of the claw so wonderfully tight against your shell. And every tiny little movement of his mouth against your claws—especially at the joints between the digits—sends waves of aching heat through you. You lean into Quirrel’s touch—lean into _all_ his touches—until you’re panting and quaking and your sides have begun to bloom.

“What’s this, now?” Quirrel says very gently against the palm of your claw. He doesn’t try to hold you in— _bless_ him, really—instead quizzically cupping the thick noodly Voidflesh tentacles that emerge from your sides, all warm and sticky, one of the four on your right looping about his arm. He pets its curve, considering, and you shudder all over. Quirrel smiles into your hand and nudges it so he’s able to kiss your knuckles, which makes your heart turn over sloppily. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, love? This isn’t at _all_ what I was expecting, but…” He gives the tentacles a long, lingering look and swallows hard. “I must say, my friend, your potential is beyond any of my wildest dreams.”

 _AAAAAAAAAAA._ You want to hop up and down and run in circles, but that would probably ruin the mood, so you sit still; the tentacles still wriggle excitedly, though. Quirrel swallows again and fidgets where he sits. Holy shit, he’s actually _really_ into this, isn’t he??? You can’t even remember the last time you were this happy.

“Unfortunately, I think I still need… these may still be a bit, mmm, too girthy for me to take without a little more foreplay,” he says. You make grabby claws at him, and he laughs. “All right, all right. You let me do the honors for you, after all; it’s only fair. Just let me—show you first,” he says, and moves you from your perch on his belly back to the ground in between his legs, which he splays out in loose triangles flat on the earth. You watch as he brings his claws to himself and slips just the fingertips in on both sides, like tucking them into pockets. He spreads them apart slowly—whoa, you can see his flesh bulge and move just a tiny bit even with the plates in the way, how much more dramatic is that gonna be when you can really get in there?—first to the sides, then in towards his body and out, stretching himself open so you can see so deep inside your tentacles twitch reflexively and your breathing speeds up.

“Like—er, like this,” Quirrel says, bashful again. “You could. Well! I think you might be able to get most of your claws in. Just, be careful, and not too much at once.”

You nod to show him you understand and he pulls his fingers out. They’re so wet with precome it trails in sticky threads; the one on the left—uh, your left, his right—doesn’t break for a couple moments even after he moves his claws further away.

Gently you reach up and touch, first carefully exploring the slits themselves. They’re not _quite_ horizontal, they’re at a little bit of a slant; you have no idea if they’re like this for every pill bug or if Quirrel’s are this way because he’s got a chubby middle. Now he’s aroused the lips under the plates of his belly are swollen with blood and push the plates up, making both entrances much easier to spot. You stroke the seams of both pairs of lips with careful finger pads, and Quirrel makes a quiet desperate noise that eclipses your whole mind.

With utmost care, you slowly slip your clawtips in. Quirrel whines; on either side of you his legs tremble. His flesh is warm inside, and so so _so_ soft, and luxuriously wet. You can feel his pulse just a little, and you shake all over.

How must this feel, for him? To not just have you touching such an intimate part of his body but for part of yours to be _inside_ of his? It makes him make such lovely noises, and his—he called them cunts, so you will too: His cunts squeeze on your claws tenderly, like an invitation deeper in, so it must feel really good. You wish you could experience this for yourself. Your tentacles aren’t _really_ like any kind of penis, they don’t have any sort of reproductive function and they don’t ejaculate the same way, but at least you can use them to penetrate, which is similar enough to work. You haven’t got any way to welcome someone into your body the way Quirrel has. If only you could just—just _will_ one into being, and have a cunt, a pussy, that’s all yours. If only you could have Quirrel’s claws in _you_ like this, right now.

You swirl your digits gently, trying to keep from scratching while also stretching the walls apart, and gently slide your claws deeper in. With the little finger on your left claw you touch something hard close to the far corner, and the knuckles on your right claw run across a texture that’s rougher and squishier than the rest of the gently ribbed walls. Quirrel makes a squeaky little noise like he’s about to pass out and you look up at him critically ‘cause you really hope that’s a _good_ squeak and not a bad one. He sees you staring at him and nods, gasping, so… you’re going to guess that that _is_ a good sign?

Very very _very_ carefully you turn your right wrist so the pads of your claws are touching the squishy patch instead. (Quirrel’s legs twitch and he moans. You have to curl your tentacles around each other to keep them occupied.) Curious now, you feel on your left for something similar: It only takes you a second or two to find. With your right claw you pull your digits gently back up and trail off to either side, and discover another hard small something on the far corner, near Quirrel’s flank rather than the middle of his belly.

Watching his face, you try touching one of each, and switch to the opposite with both hands. You try playing with both of the squishy patches, spreading your fingers across them in slow swirls—this makes Quirrel shake, his breathing harsh. You slide your right claw back to feel at the hard spot on that side, very gingerly pinch it between two fingertips, and he sucks his breath in noisily. You can feel his heartbeat beneath those two fingertips, and the hard spot swells; you think you’re _pretty_ safe in assuming this is his clit.

You _could_ go for the other one too, but maybe that would push this from good to _too_ much? So for now you slide your left claw deeper into Quirrel’s right cunt, pressing first your palm and then your knuckles against the spongy part of the inner wall, kneading with your fingers, and you swirl the pad of your right thumb in circles over his left clit.

“Love—love, I,” Quirrel says, tight and choked, and then he squeezes down on you—like a fist over your right claw, in slow gulping waves on your left—and he cries out once, high-pitched the way he shouted in effort when you fought side by side. Your heart soars to hear him.

You keep moving your digits very gently until Quirrel sags where he sits, breathing hard; only then do you carefully remove your claws from inside him. Both your claws are slick and glistening from tip to heel—your left’s wet all the way to your _wrist._

Presently Quirrel sits up straight again, and reaches out to cradle your face between his claws. “You, my dear,” he says in a winded chuckle, “truly are a marvel. I should be ready for you as soon as I get my breath back.”

You sort of want to cup his claws in yours, but your claws are still a sticky mess so you just press your face into his touch and hope that’ll get the general idea across. Quirrel runs the pad of one thumb over your cheek and it makes you shiver, how much you wish you could purr for him like the Grimmchild. You are going to fuck this man absolutely senseless and then once you’ve both come yourselves silly you are going to curl up on top of him and not get up for as long as you possibly can.

“Now, I can hardly let you just sit on the ground,” Quirrel muses, lifting one claw from your face to tap at his own chin. “I get backaches doing this sitting up without something to sit _against_ so I would rather lie down, but that will leave positioning a little awkward for you… my ability to touch you will be limited if you stay where you are now. Unless you would rather I don’t do that?” You shake your head at him: Maybe under other circumstances you’d be fine just tentacling him up from arm’s length, but right now you want him to _hold_ you. Plus it’s harder to get off if all you have is stimulation at the tips of these things, and your sides are absolutely a mess of precome from contemplating Quirrel’s claws. “Ah, that’s good to know. Hm… I suppose we’ll find you a spot to sit on me, then, and you can face whichever way is easier for you?”

You give him thumbs up with both wet claws, which makes Quirrel laugh. He leans in again and kisses your face over and over: First with tenderness, then with heat that makes you grab at his chest automatically (leaving a bunch of sticky clawprints, _oops_ ).

Quirrel hoists you up in his arms where he sits—you suck your breath in as his claws and then forearms graze the roots of your tentacles and coil around him a little in reflex; he kisses at your face and you nestle close to his chest while he does it. You feel the tension in his muscles as he braces himself, and slowly his back unrolls, bringing him to a gentle rest on the ground with you perched atop his pouch.

This means it’s your turn to think about positioning now. Hmm. It will definitely be easier at least at first if you can _look_ at his cunts instead of fumbling behind your field of vision, but you _also_ want to be able to watch Quirrel’s face so you have more to go on than just the sound of his voice.

And, uh, also you’ve discovered since developing the ability to sprout magic wings for short bursts that you have not got the best control over them when you come. This hasn’t ever posed _that_ big of a problem when you masturbate, but if you’re facing Quirrel’s junk and he’s fingering you and they pop out then you could wind up smacking him in the face. That would be pretty unsexy, and you don’t want to startle him into maybe grabbing too hard, because _ouch._

You compromise by sitting sideways atop the lower part of Quirrel’s pouch: This way your sides will be within easy reach for his claws and you can see what’s going on with him on either end just by turning your head. When you’re more confident with your tentacles you can turn to face him fully, and if he wants more penetration than just his cunts, well, you can turn sideways again to give yourself a decent view then.

Quirrel’s torso shifts beneath you as he swallows. The subtle motion presses between your legs and you _ache,_ you have to clench your thighs to keep from wiggling against Quirrel’s belly until you slide yourself right off his side like a total dipshit.

After one more moment’s consideration, you bring one tentacle—the lowest on each side—over to rest on the seams of Quirrel’s cunts. He makes a weak little _ah_ noise at the touch, and you turn your head to face him.

“You’re all right,” he says, smiling up at you. The simple change in perspective to looking down at him floods your whole body with weird euphoric lust. He holds up one claw at you, not seeming to care that yours are still messy, so you take it; he wraps fingers and thumb around your whole fist and cradles it with incredible tenderness. Fondness swamps you and wracks your body like a fever. “I’m ready.”

Your whole body’s screaming for you to just jam yourself in, stuff Quirrel full with everything you’ve got all at once. You pointedly do not do this, instead licking at the lips on both sides with the very tips of your tentacles. Quirrel moans underneath you, and again more emphatically as you use the nubby protrusions along the thick bulbs at the ends to help open him up for you: They’re less articulate than your claws, really only made for grabbing—or slashing, you guess; you know you can sharpen them if you wanted to use these things to help you fight (you much prefer magic or a nail because these are _sensitive_ )—but they’re just nimble enough to manage this.

“Love, don’t tease,” Quirrel says gently, all breathy; you grip at his claw and slide in, the left tentacle just a little behind the right.

He quivers and sighs. Your breath stutters at the sudden rush of sensation: Warm, soft; tight and squeezing gently. You rub a little at his walls—clumsily at first and then more confidently—before thrusting a little deeper in and curling.

“Oh!” Quirrel says, and you swivel back to him for a moment, heartbeat quickening. “No—please don’t stop that, dear friend. It’s—it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before… _ohh,_ that’s so lovely.”

That rich note of pleasure in his voice is going to _ruin_ you. Already your idle tentacles quiver and lash plaintively in the air and twine around each other for stimulation. You’re leaking precome onto Quirrel’s belly and the heat in yours urges you to rut your crotch against him. You slide in deeper still and twist in him, undulate and curl and rub against the uneven texture of his walls until he’s making little pleased cries with each movement and you’re panting.

You bring the next lowest pair of tentacles down to play with his lips, and Quirrel clutches at your claw. He twists and arches a little underneath you and for a moment you’re worried he’s going to accidentally dump you onto the ground, but he doesn’t. You watch his face and cling at his palm. You don’t want to just—just jam them in without any sort of okay from him but…

“Please,” Quirrel says. “Go ahead, love. I’m—ah, I think you’re going to make me come again.” And he reaches out with his free claw to touch your chest and belly, trailing long fingers over your shell. Your whole body quivers, sings, beneath that touch.

The second set of tentacles slip in _easy_ and Quirrel takes you so smoothly: From the outside the slits of his cunts don’t look that wide but now he’s come once his body’s unbelievably giving. You keep the first pair of tentacles writhing inside him, slide a little deeper in for good measure, and gently thrust the second pair in and out like extra-flexible cocks, skewing toward his flanks so you’ll graze against his clits. Quirrel’s body bows up again and his claw tightens; his fingers scrabble at your front. You twist your body and swing your leg around so you’re straddling him, and you guide that claw on your front to your side instead, long fingers curled around the very root of your tentacles. Quirrel grasps at your flesh—your side and the tentacles both—and it’s your turn to gasp and arch and wiggle. The two free tentacles on your right side loop around Quirrel’s forearm and each other, desperate.

“Ah—look at you, love,” Quirrel says around shallow breaths, words starting to slur just a little. “Stars, but you’re beautiful. I’m—ah, I’m going to come. Please—please. Come with me. Ah.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. You let go of Quirrel’s claw to brace yourself—you have to, you can’t stop your hips grinding. He gets his right claw all up over your left side, too, carefully kneading at your slippery flesh, and your top four tentacles make frantic knots around each other and his arms. Quirrel tightens on you abruptly and you _thrash_ inside him with surprise and he _keens_ and his claws clamp down on you and it’s just _too_ perfect, his orgasm drags you down with him. Your wings burst open and twitch and you cling to him and rock while the heads of your tentacles leak syrupy-thick black fluid all over Quirrel’s arms and into the depths of his cunts. Finally your mind goes blessedly blank.

Quirrel lies flat on his back, breathing so deep you can feel your body rising and falling. You flop on your front. His claws are still loose around you and you already want more, you want to get off again _right now,_ but the rest of your body can’t keep up with you yet and, like, what if Quirrel’s already done for right now?

“Ah, love,” Quirrel says, hazy and tranquil. Your chest aches with raw affection and this only gets worse when he shifts his right claw on your side so he can reach your face with his thumb. Warm Void dribbles down the front of your mask in a way that has nothing to do with your arousal. Quirrel wipes the tear away like a gentleman. “Love, you make me feel…” He trails off for a long while. “I feel a younger bug, when I’m around you. The wonders of this world all seem more beautiful when witnessed with you at my side. You bring such kindness—such warmth to a cruel existence.”

You grip at Quirrel’s chest with your claws and shake. He strokes more tears away.

“Are you very tired, my dear?” he asks. You shake your head no, and Quirrel rises up just head and shoulders to leave little kisses along your horns. If he keeps being this tender you are going to end up sobbing into his chest within five minutes. “I’m glad of that knowledge. I don’t want to push you too hard, but I still—I must confess I become terribly greedy around you. I want more—I want to take everything you can give. I want to give you all of myself. I want _all of you_ inside me. I…” His voice has grown throaty and quiet, and he cuts himself off to stroke your face and kiss you some more. “I still feel so _empty,”_ he says all hushed and shy, “and I daresay between the two of us I’m more than wet enough. I want. I want you everywhere at once, love. And I want to make you come again. Will you fill me up everywhere you can? I want you in my cunts and I want you in my ass and I want to hold you and make you come apart.”

You _will_ die. With shaky claws you reach out and caress Quirrel’s face—you’re both such a mess right now it’s silly to worry about your claws being dirty, especially when Quirrel’s unconcerned enough to kiss and lick at your fingers.

“So you’ll indulge me?” Quirrel says. You nod. “Ah, love. You’re much too good to me.”

With an effort you hoist yourself back upright; Quirrel offers his claws for support, and you rest yours in his to help balance as you pull your lowest pair of tentacles out. (Beneath you he gasps at the sensation, and you shiver all over.) Gingerly you turn, and scoot for a seat further down Quirrel’s front so you’ll have a better view of what you’re about.

He is very, very wet, and so are you: Your lowest tentacles drip and trail thick viscous come, both yours (black) and his (shiny and translucent). It’s splashed all over his belly, trailing from his cunts down his sides and gumming at the lower edge of his pouch. He kind of looks like he got dragged through a bush and the bush was sex, and especially with a tentacle still in each cunt you can see into him to his clits bulging with arousal. His breathing is deep and rhythmic and your whole body rises and falls with it. He’s so warm around you still you almost think he’s steaming in the cool lakeside air, and as you stare at him trying to decide whether you’re just imagining this he gently kneads your claws and the depths of his cunts squeeze on you. Your breath hitches noisily. It is embarrassing how inviting he looks and how fucking horny you are right now. You want to just— _wreck_ him, fast and sloppy and then slow and painstaking, just absolutely take him apart until all he can do is moan and beg and cry his little pet names for you like they’re something holy. You want to come in him until his cunts and his ass are overflowing and then keep going, to debauch Quirrel like a cheap porno, lavish him in decadent sex until your bodies can’t take any more and you both pass out together.

The timing and location are both too shitty to live out that particular fantasy. He’s bereaved and you’re fucked-up and this is your first time together and you are outside in the damn cold. Over-the-top beasts-in-heat marathon sex can wait until you at least have a bed inside a building and your respective hearts are a little less raw from being broken. And most of all, you don’t want to push Quirrel too hard. He’s so much more mortal, more _fragile,_ than you.

So when you lower the tip of one tentacle to his lowest entrance you are very, very slow and careful, taking a good long moment to lave it with your thick mingled come before you even start to nudge in. Quirrel breathes in slowly and out heavily with the deliberate relaxation of someone very used to anal penetration, so you don’t have to fight him—but he’s _much_ tighter here and you’re a little lowkey worried that maybe you ought to have dismounted and stretched him out with your claws for a while first. You peek over your shoulder to check his expression.

“No need to worry for me, my friend,” he says, smiling, squeezing your claw. “I’m not hurt.” He sighs again and you feel it all through you, everywhere your shells touch and everywhere you’re inside him. “You’re—ahh, you’re perfect. Your top set seems a little lonely, love. My cunts ought to be able to take another pair.”

You trace your thumb over the side of his claw. He makes a soft little whiny noise deep in his throat. Gratefully you slip your second highest pair of tentacles into Quirrel’s wet heat: Your built-up come makes an utterly obscene squelch and he clutches on you briefly and moans. It burns all the way up your sides, all pleasant ache and need.

Careful, you take up the same sat-sideways pose you initially assumed before. Quirrel drops your claw to get his own claws around your sides, bolder now, the pads of his fingers tracing slow spirals at the very roots of your tentacles that make you twist and dance between his hands. You have to twine your tentacles together in his cunts to keep them from moving too much and let yourself concentrate on shallow gentle thrusts into and smooth pulls out of his ass, that other lowest tentacle gently kneading at the ring of Quirrel’s flesh around you to ease him and work more slick come in for you to work with. He hums and his claws squeeze at you, sliding sweet and easy through your fluids. “Darling, I won’t break. You needn’t hold yourself back. Fuck me.”

Just hearing _darling_ and _fuck me_ all drenched with pleasure in his voice is almost enough to finish you off: You _throb_ and Quirrel gasps and you unbraid with an agonized flourish in his cunts. He squeezes at you, claws and three separate sets of muscles, and it’s too unsynchronized for you to come to but it feels so good it _hurts,_ has you leaking fresh precome all over the place. You shift in Quirrel’s hands to straddle him again, sink down on all fours atop him, brace your claws along his shell, head raised just enough you can watch his face.

“Please,” he says to you now, tugging and rolling at the base of your unoccupied topmost pair of tentacles with frantic forefinger and thumb. “Love, please. Please. I want _everything._ Fill me up, I beg of you.”

Hazy-headed you bring the tips of them to his cunts, not daring, but Quirrel says _“Yes”_ and so you hold him open and plunge home.

He cries out and clings, body bowing up. Your thrusts into his ass speed up and you curl and uncurl and flutter through the wet welcoming depths of his cunts, spearing deep as you dare, roiling through his walls and lashing against those soft spongy spots. He’s so tight around you it’s impossible to escape curling around yourself, and that’s what does it as much as anything else: Your mind boils bright white and your limbs all tremble and you let go.

“…that’s right,” Quirrel is crooning to you when your hearing starts working again. “You’re so lovely when you come, my dear. And so strong. I’ve never felt so full.”

You lie still atop him and catch your breath. He’s moved his claws so he strokes your tentacles further out rather than touch your sides directly—very smart; it’ll be a few seconds still before that would be good again instead of overstimulating.

He hasn’t come yet, though. His breathing’s still quick and fevered and his heartbeat where the walls of his cunts and ass press down around you is frantic. You take a long shuddery breath and lever yourself back up on your elbows, flex the wings you didn’t feel pop back out. You spread the fingers of your claws out slow and soothing over the plates of his chest and start to thrust just the tentacle in his ass again, very very slow.

It’s a lot easier going now you’ve come inside him here too: You slide through his tight walls so much more smoothly, and the tight ring of his entrance is more forgiving. Quirrel’s claws shudder and clench on you and he whines; you can _feel_ his clits plump up one then the other against you but you resist the temptation to rub against them. Instead you quest gently with the very head of that lone tentacle until you press full against something that makes Quirrel groan long and rich and sweet.

“All of you,” he says as though delirious while you knead that spot. “All of you, all of you, please. Please, love, I swear to you I can take you. Please, please.”

Your body shakes like a flower. You ripple inside him with an effort, holding the rest of yourself brutally still with every shred of control you’ve got left, and push with your last stray tentacle against his ass until the tip slides in beneath the ring, giving the little nubs _just_ enough leverage to pull the rest of you inside.

Quirrel breathes out all rushed and sharp, and like—same. He’s so tight it very nearly hurts, almost _too_ tight, far too tight for you to keep thrusting. So you undulate your tentacles very very lightly and ripple into his cunts with more force, pressing firm to his clits until your own breath is coming in ragged little pants.

He releases you altogether to ball his claws into fists and cross his arms over his face, back arcing up once more. “Love,” he manages to get out, and _“harder,”_ but you’ve only barely started to thrust into his cunts before the grip of his body _slams_ vicelike around you and he’s rocking beneath you, voice rising and falling in little fluting cries, pulling at your tentacles in shuddering gulps.

It’s not quite enough to get you off along with him, though, not this time, so you’re left arched and aching over Quirrel as his body goes limp, rubbing against yourself more than his walls, every muscle tight to keep yourself from losing control and slamming into him while he slowly relaxes from orgasm.

Slowly he brings his arms down from around his head, and he looks at you with this sad soft expression that nearly fucking kills you. Quirrel reaches up to cast the backs of his claws over your face and then finds a hold upon your sides again, curling his palms firmly to the flesh of your roots.

“It’s all right, darling,” he murmurs all soft and breathless. “Come inside me, now. Come for me.”

His fingers rub and knead and the palms pump against you, a warm brisk pace like jerking off a cock. It rages through you like wildfire and your brain fucking short-circuits: You pound into him until he gasps, your back arches; scintillating pleasure rips through you from the head and body of each tentacle straight down to your roots. You let go, and you let go, and you let go, and something hot and _huge_ tears loose from your back: An impact that rocks you and Quirrel both, an impact whose cause you only realize when the echo of your scream rebounds.

Your limbs give out and flop you into Quirrel’s hands. Slowly your tentacles retract, pulling first out of Quirrel’s ass with a faint wet _pop_ and then from his cunts with loud slick noises, slipping aching through his fingers to disappear back into your body. With an effort you tuck your wings away, and then you lay your face flat against Quirrel’s front. Even still floaty from such an intense orgasm you nevertheless have _just_ enough presence of mind to be embarrassed: Your wings popping out during sex is one thing, but _casting Abyss Shriek???_

It’s… it’s _one_ way to scream in pleasure without a voice, you guess, but _still._ Ugh! That would have been a disaster if you hadn’t been on top…

You’re too satiated to really care about that, though. Your memory’s still a haze but you _do_ know it’s been some time since you last had sex this intense. Maybe even longer since you last came three times so quickly…

Distantly you can feel Quirrel’s claws drumming peacefully at the back of your shell, can feel him shift to plant a kiss at the tip of your left horn. You sigh, sigh, and slip into sleep, lulled by the steady beat of his heart.

When you wake you’re lying on the ground, alone.

There’s something warm laid out over your body, and you cast about trying to get a good look without dropping it on the ground for a moment before you recognize the dark blue-gray cloth of Quirrel’s kerchief. Spread out like this it’s almost as big as you are. He must have put it over you when he got up to keep you from getting cold… This is an extremely unfair punch to the emotions first thing after some really fucking good sex. You fold the kerchief over and then again into a square as you sit up, tender inside and out, and glance around.

Quirrel’s nail is jabbed into the ground, but you don’t see him anywhere.

A snatch of a memory, of something he said to you when he first spoke to you of the Blue Lake, flashes through your head: _The rain seems to come down endlessly, though. I’d like to see where it comes from before I leave this kingdom…_

And another, more ominous memory flashes through your head, this from when you and Quirrel first met: _The dead shouldn’t be burdened with such things_.

You rise to your feet. The kerchief falls to the ground before you. Turning towards the Blue Lake you feel as though your whole body is one great fearfully pounding heart.

He’s there, wading in. If you thought he looked strange without the Teacher’s mask, that’s nothing to the sight of him completely bareheaded—if you didn’t know his stature he’d be indistinguishable from any husk of his species. It makes your skin crawl to see it. Cautiously you approach the water’s edge, as Quirrel takes another step forward, disappearing into the blue all the way up to his chest.

You’ve swum this lake before, more than once. The dropoff past the shoreline is very sharp.

Quirrel moves as if to take another step. Something inside you snaps.

You dash to retrieve your nail and speed right back to the water’s edge, jam your nail as deep into the earth as you can. All your muscles already ache and your sides _scream_ when you force your tentacles to unfurl, stinging Void puffing off them in clouds, but you’ll have time to care about that later. You cling to your nail’s hilt for balance and you whip your tentacles out across the water to grab Quirrel by the arms before he can vanish beneath the water’s surface.

He yelps and flails, tries to dig his heels in, but your foothold is surer and you have desperation on your side. You brace your body and with one hard _yank_ you haul Quirrel back up on shore: He lands on his back and skids to your feet. It grinds your tentacles into the earth, jangling little shouts of pain all through your limbs and back to add to the choir of their bruises and chafing, but you tighten your grip instead of letting go.

Quirrel coughs and half-curls up and then sighs and goes limp, fixing you with those sad eyes.

“Ah, love,” he says weakly, like a wheeze. “I was hoping you would just stay asleep until this was over.”

Your head throbs with something hot and raw. What the _fuck._ What the FUCK!!! You sweep your arms in the direction of the lake and then spread your claws at him in what had _better_ be the universal gesture for _WHAT THE FUCK!!!_ even in Hallownest because, uh, you think you deserve some fucking answers right now!

“The Madam is gone,” Quirrel says, and his gaze slides from your face down to somewhere around your feet. “I have fulfilled my duty. I have given my whole self in service to Hallownest twice. I am… I’m so very tired. I’m afraid I don’t have anything else in me. I’m ready to be done, love. I wanted… I wanted to end things on a high note, to give you a beautiful goodbye, one perfect last memory. I didn’t want you to see me like this.

“But, love. Please. Please just let me go.”

You find that another Abyss Shriek is boiling under your shell, ready to escape the moment you let your guard down. You grab at the earth with your claws in an effort to hold it in—you might need that soul to cast later.

It’s fucking hard though! A _beautiful goodbye?_ A _perfect last memory???_ It’s so disgusting you’d laugh, if you could. Because of fucking course. How the fuck could you really expect your feelings to carry across to Quirrel when all you have to communicate in is this shit trash pantomime? You did your best to tell him _please stay_ with your whole body but Quirrel had no answer key he could use to decipher your message.

And you—you were too busy trying to drown him out to pick up on what _he_ was trying to tell _you._

“Please, love,” Quirrel says again. His voice is quiet and despondent and every _fucking_ word he says in that tone is like being gouged with thorns. “I don’t want to fight you for this. Let me go.”

He probably doesn’t mean that literally. You understand this in your head. But your heart floods with Tiso’s shell thrown cruelly to break on the rocks and Myla still sleepwalking by the entrance to Crystal Peak and Cloth and the Mantis Lords’ brother’s sad bodies in a line and the helpless little creatures of the Ancient Basin flocking to hide in your lost kin’s corpse until their eyes light up infected gold and they rise up like a waking nightmare and the Grey Mourner exploding into Essence and the Seer’s last words that you can’t deliver to the Light who deserves to hear them and the Gruz Mother’s newborn litter and the Brooding Mawlek of the crossroads mad with solitude and the maggot knight’s brothers sobbing over his body and the horrible sick crack of Lurien’s shell breaking under your nail and blue blood running from the gouges you cut in Herrah’s abdomen and Monomon bursting like any lesser jelly and your mother urging you to mercy kill the Hollow Knight and Hornet telling you to kill not just them but the Light too—

The world around you takes on a curious dreamlike haze and you don’t feel entirely in control of your own body, more like you’re watching from a distance. You rip your nail out of the ground and tighten your tentacles’ grip around Quirrel and you walk to within arm’s length of him, and with the tip of your nail you scratch **_FUK YU_** into the dirt near his face.

It’s almost definitely spelled wrong and you don’t even know if you wrote the letters right but you find you don’t give a shit right now.

Quirrel laughs. It’s that same fucking awful half-sob from before. Your whole body’s shaking—you want to hold him to you, cradle him softly and never let go. Also you want to fucking slap him until he shuts up.

“I’m sorry,” Quirrel says, still laughing, still weeping. “But I simply—I cannot go on. I’m done. Let me be finished, love, let me rest. I am a ruin of a bug. Think on what terrible things I’ve allowed to happen, what terrible things I’ve had you do. Let me go quietly, and end in the old Hallownest that is dead but still beautiful.”

You draw a helpful circle around your message and give it a few testy taps with the point of your nail.

“Is it that you want me to live with what I’ve done?” Quirrel asks, tilting his head up to look you in the face. “Because I cannot. Even remembering so little I still know I’ve consigned much of what I loved to oblivion. That knowledge will eat away at me for the rest of my days until it claims my life. If that end shall be the same no matter what, friend, what matter when I choose to accept it?”

Now _you_ want to cry. You think you are already, actually; your whole body is such a mess of dried come and Void runoff from stress and overstrain that you didn’t notice at first you’ve got Void dribbling from your mask’s eye sockets. You can’t decide whether Quirrel is the dumbest fucking bug alive or whether you are.

You set the tip of your nail to the dirt again. You try harder this time to make the letters neat, to remember how the fuck words are spelled. Probably you make another muck of it but it’s the best you’ve got in you and he needs to know:

**_I LOVE YOU_ **

Quirrel looks at these words. He looks at them for so long you start to wonder if you even managed to misspell the word _I._ Then he says “oh” in a little voice and lowers his face to bury it in his claws and his body shakes with more quiet, ugly sobbing.

You kneel next to him in the earth and you hug him hard. Your stubby, stunted arms can’t make it even halfway around his shell and your whole body’s a mess but it’s the best you can do.

“Oh, love, I’m so sorry,” Quirrel says against your chest. “Oh, my dear friend. Darling. I never… I thought that only I…” He swallows his words. “I’m sorry that it’s me. I’m so sorry that I can’t—that I’m so unfit to give you hearth and home. I’m sorry I cannot bear to live. I should have liked my affections to go unrequited. I didn’t want to cause you any other heartbreak. Please. Please, with no memory, without the Madam, my heart is as withered a husk as any other of the pitiful creatures that roam this land. You must let me go.”

You release him from your embrace for long enough to pick your nail up and scrawl **_TO BAD_** into the dirt. Quirrel isn’t looking, so you drag his claws away from his face and tilt his chin up to force him to.

“Love,” he says, despairing, voice creaking. “Love, no.”

Still holding his head so he has to look, you dig your claws into the dirt to form the word **_LIVE_**. You underline it several times for good measure.

“I can’t,” Quirrel says. “Love, I cannot. I don’t have the strength in me for this.”

You decide summarily that you’re done listening to Quirrel’s grubshit, sheathe your nail, and bodily haul him up against you, still held fast in your much-abused tentacles. He’ll have to kill you to make you let go, which should be hard for him without a nail, and also joke’s on him if he tries it—the last bench you rested on was in the Resting Grounds proper, only a quick drop and a Crystal Heart charge or two away from here. You’d be back in a matter of minutes, easily fast enough to stop any attempt at suicide. Plus your Shade is now under your command. It could hold him while you’re on your way.

The _problem_ is you can’t literally sit on Quirrel every minute. You do have to sleep, and you have to try to figure out some way to fix this mess that hopefully involves as little murder as possible. You can’t haul him around the caverns with you if he doesn’t want to defend himself. That way lies only misery.

Sheo and the Nailsmith would probably be a great help here, the Nailsmith having been suicidal himself and Sheo having helped get his partner back on his feet. But dragging Quirrel all the way across the entire stupid crater to their place is a fool’s errand. Taking the flower to the Grey Mourner’s girlfriend was bad enough, and you don’t have the opportunity here to wipe out all the hostile creatures in your way, and you don’t trust Quirrel not to try to dive into every possible hazard along the journey in hopes of dying, the way he’s talking. There are many many hostile creatures and many many hazards between here and there.

You _could_ maybe get Sheo and the Nailsmith to come to Quirrel, if you can just find somebody to look after him until then. Even aged, Sly is a Great Nailsage, and for all you’ve only ever seen Iselda slouching at the counter of her and Cornifer’s shop you _know_ from the way she moves that she could probably beat your ass pretty well if she ever had reason to. And Cornifer is kind enough. If you can get across to them and Elderbug that Quirrel needs babysitting for a minute, you think they’ll be willing and able to deliver.

So the _problem_ here is actually getting Quirrel to a fucking stag station in order to drag him to Dirtmouth. There’s the one in the City of Tears below here, but you’ll have to fight to get to that, and there’s the one here in the Resting Grounds, but that means _climbing._ Mmmmmother _fucker._ Whether Quirrel actively fights you or whether he’s just totally inert, you don’t think you have a good chance of getting him to either. You don’t know if you can make the trek either way carrying him, the way your whole body is one long scream of pain.

Keeping this idiot bug you love alive is a task too big for just you. _All_ parts of this task are too much for you alone. Killing things is a lot easier than saving them: A summary of the whole fucking history of Hallownest.

You shake, still bearing up Quirrel’s weight. Tears of frustration and fear and heartbreak keep dripping hot and oily from your face. You, stubborn, a sewn-together abomination of three terrible Higher Beings, can come back as many times as you want. But you’ve only got one fucking chance with him.

You can’t do this by yourself and it is humiliating and terrifying to admit. You need help.

You need so much help.

Your shell burns hot and there’s a _sound_ coming from you, a low inorganic hum like some horrible alien purr, something you remember hearing faintly in the Abyss. Quirrel doesn’t react to it at all even though it’s shot tension all through you just to hear—maybe it’s on a frequency that he can’t perceive?

But you don’t have to wonder _what the shitting fuck_ much longer, because before you darkness pools through the earth and floats up in Void motes to coalesce into creatures like Siblings—black tentacly vessel-shaped masses with glowing white eyes. Except they’re both more solid than the Siblings you’ve come across in the Abyss, which had degraded to just heads trailing streamers of darkness; these ones look almost as well-formed as your own Shade.

Both are bigger than you: The one with four horns, two short and curved on each side of their face, is only a little taller, but the other one—the one with three long coiling mismatched horns that look like your mother’s roots, the one that, holy shit, you _recognize—_ is almost a full half head bigger. The two Siblings, the two Shades, hover and stare at you.

What the fuck??? What the _fuck?????_ Are they—did they come here because they could sense you calling, somehow? Are they… are they here to _help_ you?

The big one that looks like your lost kin just stares at you, and you think you read a little reproach in their posture, like _why else Would we be here, idiot!_ except with more patience than that. The smaller one, who you think you _also_ recognize from somewhere, just holds out shadowy limbs and makes grabby claws at Quirrel.

They’re—they’re offering to _carry_ him? To drag him for you, and let you lead a path to safety?

It’s the shorter one’s turn to look at you like you’re stupid, not pausing their little grabby claws even once. The bigger one reaches their claw out and pats at the top of your head, cool like water but a little more solid.

You wipe tears away. You wish you had some way to, to properly repay them.

Together the Shades of your two dead siblings lift Quirrel from your arms, each holding him by a side, hoisting him fully upright. At this he finally seems to take notice of them, his head tracking slowly from one to the other.

“Love,” he says in a voice that’s tiny with exhaustion. “Love, what is this.”

You bend to pick up his kerchief and then unsheathe your nail to tap at your messages again: **_I LOVE YOU_** and **_LIVE_**.

Quirrel hangs his head and laughs, dry and powerless like dead brush. “I take this to mean you refuse to accept _no_ for an answer.”

You replace your nail on your back and step in close, reach out with messy claws to hold Quirrel’s face between them. You stroke his wet cheeks with your thumbs and press your forehead to his, lingering as long as you dare.

Not knowing when to quit is the only redeeming trait you have left. You’re going to put it to good use.

Every creature still alive in this horrible place when you came here deserved, deserves, a kinder ending. You have fucked up there on many, many counts, and for as long as you can’t turn back time there’s no way for you to fix that.

But still. You’re going to make sure Quirrel’s future is kinder than this, no matter what.


End file.
